I finally got my web page back, with my own domain!  I don't have time to do the site over until the spring festival season is over.  I will be repairing the links to the old site as time permits, and will send plant availability lists by email attachements until that section of the site is repaired

I have raised the prices on 2.5 inch pots to $5.00 from $3.50, and on 3.5 inch pots to $7.50 from $5.00.  This is to cover the rental of my nursery space, a new cost for me, and increases in operating costs including petroleum-based supplies as well as heating and the shipping of my supplies.  This represents the first price increase in 9 years.

I have grown some stock plants I obtained during the  Salvia Summit at Cabrillo College  Cabrillo has the largest institutional collection of Salvias on the North American continent, and I also took as many digital pictures as I could.  I did get some cuttings from areas not under LBAM quarantine (light brown apple moth), and found sources for others.  More material should come when Cabrillo has its annual sale, when the LBAM quarantine will be temporarily lifted

The web site for a Travelogue of the Salvia Summit at Cabrillo College (August 2008) is still up.  There are 53 images of Salvias at Cabrillo College and four of the garden tour sites.  There are no back links to this site.

Even though I still have the old Earthlink account as a courtesy to old customers, please use the Embarq account from now on.  I am still living at the Rock House in Candor and will take care of communications from there.  The nursery is still in Star.  I do have a track phone, but will give this number out only for special situations.  I finally have an answering machine.

I am going to try again to make a major upgrade on this web page during the summer, updating links and adding more features and galleries.  I hope to add a digital photo section as well, now that I have a nice camera.  I hope to double to triple the number of galleries of sages, especially for the newer and more popular ones, with comments on their horticultural uses.

One new section I will add will be a definition of the various horticultural biomes for Salvias, based on their native growing conditions.  Even within botanic provences, there are a number of different biomes.  An example of this would be the west versus east sides of mountain ranges, like the Eleven Sisters ranges of northeastern Mexico, extending south from Monterrey and Saltillo to Orizaba in Vera Cruz (the Sierra Madre Orientale).  Sages on the eastern (cloud forest) side can have different tolerances from those on the high desert west side (central Mexican plateau).

I had a winter with six spaced out cold spells with 15 degree lows, which took a toll on both overwintered stock and stock plants.  Spring has just broken, so I my inventory will be slow to build up.  However, current conditions should allow me to generate a wealth of lush plants for late April and May.  I dare not ship these prematurely.  The pots need to fill with roots to avoid soil loss during shipping.

Besides  Salvia SL411 (a relative of S. tubiflora),  S. dichlamys (two forms), S. curviflora, S. splendens pink, S. coccinea Black & Rouge, S. coccinea Brenthurst,  S. splendens Yvonne's, S. flocculosa, and S. x westerae,   I will be going gangbusters on S. macrophylla x sagittata and  I hope to be growing  S. stolonifera, S. lasiantha, and S. lineata later

My current contact information and email address is:

Richard F. Dufresne 2119 US 220 Alternate South Candor, NC   27229

910-974-4009

Comments about the Botanic Garden and Nursery Link page:  This is the page to visit for links to other sites about Salvias and botany utilities in general.  Utilities include online Herbaria, botanic dictionaries, nomenclature, taxonomy, floral databases, and sites dealing with conventions in these areas.  Also there are links to utilities to determine weather, download contour maps, and define plant pathogens to aid plant collectors in the field and horticulturists.  Many of the questions asked on both the various Salvia forums can be answered here and on the Salvia FAQ and Utility pages.  I will be reworking these pages as I add to them later this spring and summer.

Special note: Check out these two Salvia web sites. 

The first is the Salvia Research Network, an effort of the Botany Department of the University of Wisconsin- Madison, initiated by Dr. Ken Sytsma and Jay B. Walker.  Its purpose is to cover research on the molecular phylogenetics, evolution, and classification of Salvia and related Mentheae.  Besides having a checklist of Salvias based on Alziar's work, there is a list of literature and chromosome numbers as well as DNA work.

The second is an outstanding site from Robin Middleton of England, who is maintaining a greenhouse where he has one of the best European collections of Salvias.  His web site, Robins Salvias, has at present, 350 images of Salvias, many not found in cultivation in the United States.  You will need to have Java running on your computer to view the gallery.

And this forthcoming dynamic, searchable flora of North America:

For information on the forthcoming second edition of the Synthesis of the North American Flora. see Dr. John Kartesz' web site for the Biota of North America Program (BONAP).  It will have phytogeographic information down to the county level, ample illustrations, and should be out sometime in the first half of 2008

I now regularly visit the Dave's Garden as well as the Yahoo and Garden Web Salvia forums.  I also may start visiting hummingbird forums soon and would like your recommendations

My horticultural contributions to the Salvia and herb literature include three self-published data bases in a placard format with 12 fields of information on each entry.  Each placard is a table that can be used for signage, although it is most used as a grower's reference by collectors, botanic gardens, and nurseries.  Enter the placard book site for more information.

If time permits, I will convert the placard book to Acrobat (PDF) format with active links to my web page and additional images.  The links will be both internal and to external web sites.  I plan to issue this publication on a CD-ROM.

Book Reviews
Botanic Gardens
Herbarium & Flora Data Base Links
Nurseries
Some Collages of Individual Salvia Flowers

Here is the schedule of plant festivals, sales, and presentations I will either attend or contribute to during the year 2009:

They will pretty much be the same as last year's festivals.  I have found some new ones for next year in Virginia, and hope that schedules will work.

Subscribe at: Salvia-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Also check out the Salvia forum on GardenWeb:

And the Agastache and Salvias forum on Dave's Garden: